Olivia Newton-John Shares Recipes and More

April 24, 2012 3:15 PM

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 19: Olivia Newton-John appears in store to sign copies of her new cookbook, 'Livwise: Easy Recipes For A Healthy, Happy Life' at Waterstones, Piccadilly on April 19, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Tim Whitby/Getty Images)

Photo by Tim Whitby/Getty Images

Olivia Newton-John is celebrating her 40th year in music and she shows no signs of slowing down. She called into the Dan Taylor show on WCBS-FM/New York this morning to talk about her new healthy living cookbook, LivWise, surviving cancer, her new movie A Few Best Men and much more.

Olivia just returned to the states after a tour of Asia with stops in Singapore, China and Malaysia. Also, she was recently given the prestigious National Living Treasures award in her native Australia. She says “it’s better than a buried treasure!”

Olivia is a breast cancer survivor and her lifestyle after beating cancer was a big inspiration for LivWise. She says it “came about… as a fundraising idea for my hospital. Because I’m building a cancer and wellness center in Melbourne, Australia, that I’m very excited is opening in June… and it’s done really well for us.”

Regarding her recipes, Olivia says “The food is amazing. The picture of me on the cover, I’m at Gaia Retreat and Spa, which is my spa in Australia” she continued. “We grow our own organic food there so it was really inspirational. We used a lot of the recipes from Gaia.”

Olivia was given her breast cancer diagnosis 10 years ago, on the same day her father passed away. She says she had to “make a very strong decision that [she] was going to be OK because your mind is an incredibly important tool in healing. We’re just not a brain and a body, we’re all one and we need to think positively to help the cells regenerate and think positively towards health.”

“As strange as it sounds, I’m grateful for the experience. I’m very grateful that I survived it and that now I can do things to help other people.”

Aside from her healthy living, Olivia has been busy creating as well. She’s been recording, writing and now she has a new movie out: “A Few Best Men.”

“It’s so funny,” she says. “I play the mother of the bride, the kind of mother you never want to be at a wedding.”

Behind the scenes, Olivia was very active in the soundtrack for the film. “There’s a lot of music in the movie, ’60s and ’70s music” she says. “So they asked me if I would re-record it and there’s now dance mixes of it – so now I have a dance CD also!”